The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing

Humble Bundle are always going to be of varying quality – sometimes including only a single quality game with some bonuses, sometimes of no interest whatsoever – but the latest, titled Jumbo Bundle 2, is quite the bargain.

For the low, low price of whatever-the-hell-you’d-like you’ll get space 4X Galactic Civilizations II with its expansions, side-scrolling undead violence-applier Deadlight and isometric action RPG The Incredible Adventures of Ven Helsing. Beat the average price however ($6.32 at the time of writing) and you’ll also receive 2D survival exploration Terraria, combo-heavy high-skill fighting game King of Fighters XIII and the story-spawning strategy-RPG Crusader Kings 2.

The latest trailer for The Incredible Adventures Of Van Helsing II plays out like an advertisement for a monster hunting seminar. An encouraging pitchman takes budding slayers through their development options, suggesting that some might want to try out a spot of thaumaturgy while ensuring that their pet chimera is cleverly utilised and well-fed. The benefits of companionship are outlined, as are new crafting and enchantment systems. Dedicated Drac-dusters may be slightly irked when the host recommends they abandon their solitary lifestyles in order to brush up on their people skills so that they can command and train armies – the world’s at war now and the stakes are higher than ever.

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing was an action RPG which prompted John to use such breathless superlatives as “pleasant” and “absorbing”, so I assume you’re all pre-ordering its sequel immediately. Said sequel is out next month, and while it broadly looks like another sup from the same clicky-deathfest-with-tower-defence-bits cup, it promises more character classes, weapons and whatnot, as well as the slightly discomfiting claim to have “even more humour” and “MOAR easter eggs.” … [visit site to read more]

I was surprised by The Incredible Adventures Of Van Helsing. Yet another action RPG, but one that actually did something original – it worked in some tower defence elements. Now, I’m the first person to roll my eyes out of my head, over the desk, and out of the window on seeing the words “tower defence elements”, but impressively they made sense here, felt like a natural part of the game. It wasn’t brilliant, but it was a decent budget ARPG well worth picking up on an inclement day. Since then, three chunks of DLC have appeared, the latest adding a new class, the Arcane Mechanic.

The Incredible Adventures Of Van Helsing wasn’t what I was expecting. And managed to continue to not be what I was expecting the further I progressed. Having somehow gained the impression (maybe imagined?) that it would be more of a straight RPG, I was surprised to find myself playing an action-RPG, very much in the mould of Titan Quest. I was further surprised when it started introducing tower defence themes. Here’s wot I think: